Stories for January 26th 2017

The British government published on Thursday draft legislation that will allow the UK to start the process of leaving the EU. The European Union (Notification of Withdrawal) Bill has been produced after the Supreme Court ruled legislation would be necessary.

Argentine goldsmith Juan Carlos Pallarols is creating beautiful roses and other pieces of art from bullets, pistols and even parts of airplanes from the Falkland Islands war as a way of promoting peace between his country and Britain.

UPM states that it is not engaged in negotiations on a pulp mill investment with the Uruguayan government. As earlier announced, the company is considering prospects and prerequisites for long-term development in Uruguay. Currently UPM is engaged in discussions with the Government of Uruguay on infrastructure development.

Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto has cancelled next week's trip to Washington to meet US President Donald Trump. His decision comes a day after the new US president unveiled his plan to build a wall along the Mexico-US border and insisted the US would recoup the costs for the barrier from Mexico, which has strongly objected.

Leaders from the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States, CELAC, expressed full support for Argentina's legitimate rights over the South Atlantic islands (Falklands, South Georgia and South Sandwich) and anticipated they will be requesting the UN Secretary General to renew his good offices for the resumption of negotiations between Argentina and UK to reach a peaceful solution to the dispute.

Argentina's trade relationship with the United States will not suffer an immediate negative impact with Donald Trump as president, but it remains to be seen how his measures will shape the world economy, according to the Argentine ambassador in Washington, Martín Lousteau.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) surged and closed past a historic 20,000 points mark on Wednesday (25 January), on strong earnings data from major constituents and US President Donald Trump's reaffirmation of his pro natural resources stance which sent related stocks higher both overnight and in early trading.

Over two-thirds of the 176 countries and territories in this year’s Corruption Perceptions Index fall below the midpoint of a scale spanning 0 (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean), said Transparency International (TI) upon the release of the non-profit’s 2016 report. No country reached above 90.

The small plane carrying a Brazilian Supreme Court justice overseeing a political bribery investigation did not suffer any obvious mechanical failure when it crashed into a bay amid heavy rain and killed all five on board, investigators said this week.

When Donald J Trump called some Mexican immigrants rapists, threatened to deport millions of them and promised to build a wall to keep others out, Mexican officials counseled caution, saying it was merely bluster from an unlikely candidate who, if elected, would never follow through. However with only five days in office president Trump is making Mexicans furious.